Remember The Second Chance Institute (SCI). Earth’s benevolent non-profit by day, Thera’s totalitarian regime by night. They’ve stepped up their game on Earth and on Thera—infiltrating political parties, preying on the downtrodden, and planning offensive maneuvers. And they’re handing out more “second chances” than ever before. The SCI’s abuse of their charter leads to Arbiter oversight and bitter consequences.

Remember Kira Donovan. Broken, burdened, and evading those who wish her harm, Kira enlists the Arbiters’ help when forced to return to the clutches of the SCI and her angry, estranged love.

Remember Blake Sundry. Exiled, determined, and packing an agenda, Blake seeks assistance on Earth and Thera to use his newfound knowledge to bring down the SCI.

Remember Ethan Darcton. Overworked, emotional, and holding a grudge, Ethan hunts down his stolen property, but finds himself in awkward territory, stuck between the Arbiters and the SCI.

Full of action, competing agendas, romantic entanglements, humor, twists and turns, arbitrate is Megan Thomason’s third installment in the award-winning daynight series after daynight and clean slate complex (a daynight story).

Bestselling, award-winning author Megan Thomason lives in paradise aka San Diego, CA with her husband and five children. A former software manager, Megan vastly prefers writing twisted tales to business, product, and marketing plans. When she isn’t typing away on her laptop, she’s reading books on her phone–over 600 in the last year–or attending to the needs of her family. Megan’s fluent in sarcasm, could potentially benefit from a 12-step program for road rage, struggles with a Hot Tamales addiction, loves world travel & fast cars and hates paperwork & being an insomniac.

“Thomason’s description of Thera’s totalitarianism will make fans of Brave New World shiver… SCI, her fantasy corporation, has disturbing parallels to actual companies and regimes that claim to do good while harming people… The author deftly appeals to both romance-loving teens as well as those intrigued by young adults fighting the establishment.”—ForeWord Clarion Review, 4 stars

I have been a SUPER SLACKER on my To-Reads Tuesdays lately. I wish there was some way to quit and be a full time blogger/reader… but alas, I must make money. So until some smitten publisher comes and swoops me up, I do have to work a normal job.

Instead of giving some in-depth analysis into one book, below is a list of all the 2013 releases I am looking forward to for the next 6 months!

Why I Am Excited: I’ve never heard of Suzanne Young before but I’m drawn to her because she currently lives in Tempe, AZ which is about 10 mins from me. And I really enjoy reading works from people I can actually visualize when they are writing it… maybe the fact that she lives so close to me makes me drawn to her? Perhaps. But the basis of this book is intrguing. It seems very UnWind meets Beta and Delirium. You’ve got the dystopian aspect of The UnWind Series in the government’s association with raising children and the Beta/Delirium pull with the brainwashing and memory pulling. Young’s basically using all the ingredients that have worked in the recent past to make a book popular. Whether or not that plan pans out remains to be seen.

What I Hope To See: I kind of feel bad but I am caught up in what I hope I DON’T see in this series. First, no love triangle or InstaLove. Second, no overly dramatic self pitying and depreciating protag. Third, no uhealthy relationship between Sloane and James. If she can pull that off, I think my rating will already be a three based on the concept. I also hope this book doesn’t swing too young, too “let me force this idea down your throat”. I feel like it could get a little naive if she lets it just based on the summary provided but then it also deals with a very serious subject of suicide. *exasperated sigh* I don’t know what I am trying to say here.. basically, if it’s handled delicately, it could be awesome. I also hope she can create a world completely unique. Since Young’s pulling ideas and concepts from a lot of popular well known books, I hope she can can capture a different world within her pages.

My Predictions: As always, it’s difficult to predict anything with a new series but I’ll give it a shot.

Obviously, Sloane has parents that love her and want to protect her. Now this could sway positive or negative. Does she want to keep them happy because they are so devastated by their loss of her brother and she would feel guilty if she messed up too? Or does she genuinely adore her parents and their relationship? This relationship will really define the basics of the book. My thoughts? Option One.

We already have a leading male in the protag’s life: James. It’ll be interesting to see how Young initially describes their relationship. Passionate? Friendly? Adoring? Do they build each other up or beak each other down? I think they will have a positive relationship so we can really sympathize with Sloan throughout the book.

Now we know Sloan will have a “Stick it to the Man” moment at some point in the series. Just like all dystopia’s with government over-lording, our character’s always somehow find themselves in a position to fight back. Now this book is about suicide, which leads me to believe it’s going to have the more dramatic vibe like UnWind did, or even the uncomfortable discussions like XVI did. So I am hoping that Young eases us into the plot, really giving us raw character emotion so that we can fly and root alongside Sloan when she undoubtedly will make her stand in the end. Basically, I want to be gripped hard and fast.

Why I Am Excited: This is hard for me to say because I am so completely enthralled and ga-ga over this series it makes it difficult to sit still when talking about it. I think I actually stutter a bit when I try to explain how epically delicious this story is. It’s just… just… perfect. This is why .gifs were made, when people like me can’t put their feelings into words so here.. this will hopefully capture my emotions:

This story, these characters, the writing, the plot, it’s all magnificently molded together to make an amazing new fairytale. This series is dystopia meets Cinderella. Totally swoon worth men and a feisty little heroine. I literally love every. single. aspect. of The Selection and will cry tears of joy when I wake up next Tuesday to The Elite on my Kindle.

What I Hope To See:*Contains Spoilers* If you haven’t read the previous books, LOOK AWAY! The Selection was an amazing book and really set us up for a tempting second installment. With America and Maxon’s sultry romance blossoming and Aspen’s new position as a palace guard, there is going to be a lot of sexual tension flying around the castle. And with ho-face model girl there to be the devil on Maxon’s shoulder when it comes to his affections, you know there will be girl fights happening. Now I hope hope hope American finds true love with Maxon (come on, he’s a PRINCE!) and sends asshole Aspen packing (he left YOU, America!) and all will be well. But with this only being book numero dos and a third book waiting in the wings, I’m not sure how close we will get to the answer of who ends up together.

My Predictions: I base these predictions on the synopsis they release with the cover and this one is SUPER exciting because it tells us America actually decides who she wants to be with SNAP! So I am going to go two ways here:

If America chooses Maxon: If America decides she wants Maxon, and then “a devastating loss” happens, I think someone in her family must die? And if they do die, I think it must be because of the royal family in some way. Did the King force her father or mother to do something? Is her sister sick? Who knows. But if she does sway Maxon’s way, something HAS to happen to cause her to double back.

If America chooses Aspen: I will hate this series if she does. BUT if she does, I think as soon as she chooses him he gets shipped off to the battlegrounds with the rebels. Or he gets killed/maimed/hurt when the rebels attack the palace.

Along with the LoveTriangle between America, Aspen and Maxon, I think slut-face Celeste is going to dig her claws pretty deep into Maxon and cause some uber drama. Especially since Daddy wants Celeste way more then some random 4. And perhaps we will see the “other girl” from The Prince novella in book two as well? That would be juicy 😉

“America Singer, one day you will fall asleep in my arms every night. And you’ll wake up to my kisses every morning.”
― Kiera Cass, The Selection